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New developments in consumption-based emissions accounting suggest that the reductions claimed by wealthy, environmentally progressive nations have often come at the expense of increased emissions elsewhere – and thus net growth in global GHG concentrations. This paper traces Sweden's attempts to translate growing recognition of displaced emissions into national environmental policy. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research and policy analysis in Sweden and China, we argue that while the logical implications of consumption-based analyses point to the need to address production and consumption as an integrated system, complex governance challenges and the political precariousness of these ideas have thus far limited policy to the reinvention of consumer awareness campaigns and an international extension of long-standing ecological efficiency efforts. We argue that consumption-based emissions indicators justify more ambitious demand-side policy response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the Conference of the Parties held in Copenhagen in 2009 (COP15), the Chinese government announced its 2020 commitment to reduce the carbon intensity of the Chinese economy to 40–45% of its 2005 level. A number of analysts have criticised this target, indicating that these reductions can be achieved without the implementation of any active climate change policy. In this paper, we test this argument using a combined input–output based econometric projection approach and the World Input–Output Database (WIOD). Our results show that the projected carbon intensity for 2020 is likely to be 50% lower than the carbon intensity of 2005, without additional active climate change policy measures performed by the Chinese government. On top of it, our study indicates that the total volume of CO 2 emissions would be by 2020 seven times the volume of the year 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]